For those of you who have never used Google Translator here is your big chance. You should keep in mind that 鄭明哲 is my Chinese name. Once you have figured out this post’s title you can write me a comment about how great Chinese is and how much you enjoy learning it.

Before reading on, press the play button of this video and listen to it as you read. It will be a scrumptrulescent experience, I promise.

Last week I finished my last final, turned in my last term paper and started winter break! Last Thursday Emily and I hosted a “No More School” party here at our house with truly fantastic people joining us in our celebration. This week I’ve lazed about, began using Pimsleur in my quest to become a real speaker of 普通話 (Mandarin), hiked with Emily in the hills just south of 台北市 (Taipei City), spent an evening at the club with foreign exchange classmates for one last whoopla before they bid Taiwan adieu, and said goodbye forever to being a twenty-five year old. What a wonderful world we have been given.

After checking my grades and speaking with classmates it seems that there is consensus in my class that many of our professors felt that they were too kind to us during the midterms and have tried to make up for it in grading our final exams. It seems like all of us have 5-10 points less on our finals than were on our midterms….maybe the administration gave one of their crack-down decrees or something. Maybe we all just slacked off. Whatev’, we should all become Montessori advocates anyways.

Our party was great. A ton of people had told Emily and I that they would be coming but as it turned out there were not too many but plenty enough to have fun! I estimate thirty to forty but Emily insists there were at least fifty people. We had an awesome mix of my classmates, Emily’s classmates, and friends of friends creating an atmosphere of diversity, conversation, beer-pong, Soul Caliber II (Playstation for the rest of you), and Texas Hold’em. Phil, one of our roommates headed up the beer-pong effort and it was a true hit. While the fact that the Asians did not know the game wasn’t surprising, I was flabbergasted in learning that the Europeans hadn’t played. Just think, because of our party beer-pong will be spreading the world over. Can a man leave a better legacy is the question that now haunts my moments of cogitation. Last year we had our party at the end of Spring semester in June and it was way too hot. Now, having done both I can say with authority that having the party at the end of Fall semester is a much better way to go.

The lazing about has been great for me but a little nerve-racking for Emily. I think that might be a reflection of our upbringing. What do you think?

Pimsleur’s Mandarin learning curriculum has been recommended to me a few times now. It was apparently developed by Dr. Pimsleur to simulate the way a baby learns language. So far I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m hopeful that I will soon be speaking pǔ tōng huà like a zhōng guó rén. Right now, though, I need to remain hopeful and consistently exercise my nǎo. Diligence is my Achilles’ heel but this time…this time will be different.

The lazing about came to a head this past Wednesday with Emily suggesting we go hiking. We chose a trail out of our Taipei Day Trips book that started just south of Xindian and went up over a mountain (or big hill if you prefer) and ended down the other side in Muzha. On the way up we stopped in to see a little temple cut into the side of the mountain behind a waterfall. It was pretty rad. If I were going to be a monk that place would be a contender. Upon reaching the top of the hill Emily and I came upon a few criss-crosses in the paths that we weren’t too sure about and ended up a little off-track. No matter though as we decided we had had enough hiking for the day. Finding ourselves in the Tea House area of the mountains surrounding Muzha we popped into one, bought some tea, enjoyed the view, talked, and sipped to our hearts content. I should teach you all how to properly drink tea; it is quite a procedure. Once we’d had our fill we hopped on the bus for the winding ride back down into the city.

Emily and I joined some of my classmates, who were only here for this past semester as exchange students, at 9 percent, a club that is luckily within walking distance from our house. Emily and I had never been there before and the evening was a nice bit of Long Island ice-teas, dancing, and saying goodbye to Julia and Fendi who are leaving to head back to Germany.

As I write this I am celebrating my first day as a twenty-six year old. I knew it was coming up but since break began I’ve completely lost track of dates. Consequently I didn’t realize until yesterday that my birthday was looming so near. I’m not even thirty and I’ve already become that guy who forgets about his own birthday. This very moment Emily is preparing a wonderful birthday dinner for me so I had better go.

It’s amazing but we’ve already been back for a little over two weeks. Many things have happened in that amount of time but it seems like we’re less busy than back in Michigan. It’s like we’ve come back to our normal life and it’s a vacation.

Last Saturday we took advantage of the hot weather and went with some friends to Fulong Beach. We rented a surfboard and had a great day! You know that question people ask you about weather you’re a beach person or a mountain person? I think I’m a beach person.

Last Sunday was a big day as well. Our first Sunday back we were asked if we’d like to lead worship sometime and we said sure. Later that week, Thursday to be precise, we got a call asking if we wanted to lead the coming Sunday. After a 15 second hesitation I said sure why not. I’m from a big Irish family so embarrassment is just another part of life anyways. It actually turned out great too! I played guitar and our pastor’s wife played piano. Emily and I sang together on the English parts and she sang alone on the Chinese parts with me getting in a word here and there. We sang “Create In Me A Clean Heart,” “This Is My Father’s World,” “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and “Because He Lives.” I really enjoyed it to be honest. They have put us on the rotation too so if you’re ever in Taiwan and you want to see me stumble my way through a song in Chinese make sure you are here on a Sunday.

There really has been quite a lot going on. Thanks to Emily I picked up another tutoring gig. Emily’s student’s boyfriend is now my student and he’s a pretty cool guy! I’m also excited to be doing some Chinese classes as well a few evenings a week in addition to my normal classes.

A few days ago on the stairs at school I ran into my Calculus professor from freshman year, Jennifer Hu. I hadn’t seen her since then but she has been my favorite teacher thus far and we had a nice little chat. She told me that she’s taught over a 1000 students and that I’ve been the most consistent in coming to office hours…thank goodness she offered them because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a prayer in that class!

(SIDE NOTE: Just this second there was a pretty good sized earthquake shaking our house. Don’t worry mom, it didn’t do anything. By good sized I mean it was noticeable.)

Just yesterday I came out of the school gate and ran into a group of Taiwanese Gideons handing out New Testaments. They were bilingual Chinese and English Bibles and they gave me two of them. After walking away a little I decided to see if they’d let me help them hand out the Bibles. At first they weren’t sure if that would be okay but they ended up letting me so for about 20 minutes or so I gave out Bibles to classmates and students who go to MCU. The ones that were most interesting to me were the ones that were interested in whatever was being given out but when they found out what it was they gave a little wide-eyed look and a little ‘no thank-you’ wave of the hand. It was like what I’d expect if a group of people tried to hand out Korans outside an American high school except without the cops being called, the newspaper writing a story about it, and a bunch of angry parents feeling like their children had just been violated. Gets you thinking about your own religion doesn’t it? It does me whenever I remember that my religion isn’t the mainstream or dominant one here. It’s the weird, avant garde (in some people’s eyes) religion. The religion that when someone is converted their family and neighbors wonder what happened to them and why they got so strange.

This semester I think every, single one (or maybe it’s just almost every, single one) of my classes have group project assignments. What is with these group projects? They cannot be as valuable as all that? Enough with the group projects already!!!

Several Sundays ago Pastor Joel told the church that if anyone wanted to help out there were two ongoing ways we could. Option one: if you are an early riser come early to church and help set up as we meet in a space at a university so it must be set-up and taken down every week. Option two: teach children’s church. I am not an early riser so I very quickly ruled out option number one.

A few weeks ago I approached Pastor Joel and asked for more specifics on teaching children’s church. We talked about getting involved in the church more and he expressed interest in me helping with videographic projects because my Thanksgiving video was such a hit. I told him about being involved in small churches and such back home and how I was up for anything. All of that didn’t hinder him from helping me with my original question though and sign me up to teach children’s church. Today my turn to teach came!

Pastor Joel’s instructions had been that they weren’t using a curriculum presently so I had about 40 minutes to teach the youngsters anything I wanted. What fun! It got me thinking of the children’s church lessons I had given back at Immanuel Christian Fellowship in the States and that got me excited. Following curriculum has always been less appealing to me then just telling stories from the Bible. With curriculum my brain has a certain amount of stuff to get through which gets me thinking about the end-game whereas loosey-goosey makes me zany, childlike, and fun. Sometimes, like now, I realize just how weird it is that I can see these things about myself but for some reason I still can’t make my reaction to curriculum the same as my reaction to loosey-goosey. Self-realizations are strange things.

I just recently finished reading through Genesis so after thinking over a few stories I decided on Joseph. Saturday I made myself a little cheatsheet of the high points in the story so I could find my way if all the pressure of being in front of a group of kids made me lose my train of thought. I also picked out a Bible verse that we could memorize and thought about questions I could ask the kids before and after to stimulate greater reflection and life applications from the story. All this preparation was making me nervous!

Well Emily and I got to church, took our seats and enjoyed ourselves as usual singing songs to praise the King of Kings. Then greeting time came and afterwards the kids and I adjourned to our conference-room turned children’s church facility. Uncle Moses, an extremely sweet older Taiwanese man who teaches children’s church a lot and has basically taken on the mantle of filling in whenever there isn’t someone else signed up to teach decided that he would be my assistant.

First we played an introduction game because “I’m new” I said “and don’t know everyone that well.” The kids were great! There was 1 boy (poor fella) and 4 girls from 10 to 5 years old. Once introductions were over the kids were getting the picture that I was a different sort of teacher then they were used to and conversation was flowing like crazy from all over the room. By this I mean the kids did not sit quietly by and listen respectfully once they realized I didn’t expect them to. It was great! This lack of order did not prepare them for what came next though.

We started talking about Joseph and his family. We talked about how his family was kind of strange. After all his father had two wives and Joseph had all these brothers and Jacob actually had favorite children, Joseph being one of them. Jacob even had a favorite wife. We also talked about how Joseph’s family was kind of like those of us there because his family lived far far away from their relatives in a foreign land which was not the custom and how we live far far away in Taiwan from our relatives in a foreign land. I should mention at this point most of the kids were from America. It was really cool to see light bulbs go off in their brains realizing that they have similarities with weird, polygamous, Old-Testament families. “Who wants to help us act out the story and play the part of Joseph” I asked. This amount of craziness proved to be too much and instantly I was looking at an empty conference table as they all dove underneath it to ensure I didn’t misinterpret anything as a gesture of volunteerism.

Well after they got used to me acting out all the parts myself they decided they wanted in on the action and came up for air. Stepping from side to side, signifying my jumping from Jacob to Joseph in a conversation about the colorful coat my actions made one little girl in between giggles tell me “this is the craziest Sunday school I’ve ever been to.” Pay dirt!

I got no where near the end of the story. We stopped where Jacob has been told Joseph is dead and Joseph has been sold as a slave in Egypt. I asked them if they could remember the story until next week when we could continue it and they said they could. Uncle Moses had brought snacks so we all enjoyed ourselves for a few minutes until the big church let out! The little Taiwanese, five-year-old, adopted girl who’s parents are a mixed-couple so she speaks perfect English had sat on top of the table the whole lesson. She definitely seemed to be in her own little world most of the time but during snacks she looked up at me, smiled, and said “I like you Michael.” “I like you too” I answered back.

Teaching children’s church seemed to change something. After church more people were talking with us and it seemed like there was this threshold we had crossed in terms of how the tried and true members of the church thought of us. It makes absolute sense. Its a very transient church since many foreigners come to Taiwan for 6 months or a year to learn Chinese or teach English in a cram school and then leave. Teaching children’s church seems to have helped communicate our membership into the New Hope community. Not that we weren’t welcomed before because we definitely have been, very warmly. Its just now it seems like we’ve reciprocated that welcome and communicated our acceptance of the community membership. Its a great feeling!

“Hi,
I am a British university student graduating this year! With the world depression I am finding it hard to find a job next year in the UK! So i was thinking of heading to Taiwan to teach english for a whole year!

Could you tell me what its like living in Tiapei and how much an apartment in the city center would cost?
Also how did you cope with the language barrier

Thanks!!!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good questions Kush.

As far as what its like living in Taipei I’m not sure how to answer you since thats a pretty broad question. I would suggest reading blogs. Another good source of information is www.forumosa.com where people write about a ton of different topics on life here. Life is life though so to answer your question in a nutshell I’d say life in Taipei is just like life anywhere else, it is what you make it. Sorry to be so cliche.

Apartment prices really vary. It depends on what you want. We found our apartment on www.tealit.com which is where we do a lot of things. Its a great resource for foreigners in Taiwan.

Prices range on the cheapside at about 5000 NTD if you can find it upwards. Realize that space in Taipei is luxury so what you pay in rent is usually dependent on how much space you get and also has to do with where you live. I’ve found it much cheaper to get a “house” sized apartment and then split it with roommates. If you want to live alone then its hard to find something very big thats affordable.

The language barrier really isn’t hard to deal with. Many Taiwanese young people know English fairly well and many are anxious to practice. This coupled with the friendly and helpful nature of people here makes not knowing Chinese doable. Many restaurants, banks, shops, businesses, have English menus and services so its really not bad at all. Just to give you an example, when I go to Subway to get a sandwich I order in English.

You can definitely live in Taiwan without knowing Chinese just fine. Its also a great place to get employment at a fairly decent rate teaching English. Go for it!

I know I know the title makes it sound like we’re announcing that we’re pregnant or something but thats not it.

Some friends of ours created a radio program as part of a midterm project. They asked to interview us on what its like to be married while in degree programs here in Taiwan.

For those of you who are interested you can now find this interview on the ABOUT US page. Many thanks to Kenton Chance for passing along the audio and for the excellent editing. In addition we want to thank him and his group, Curry, Yirone, and Michael, for allowing us to share it here.